In 1982, the American horror novelist Stephen King released a collection of novellas called Different Seasons. The novellas were a change of pace from his normal genre of writing, but surprisingly all of the stories were well received. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, the first of the four novellas, was the story of an innocent man sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife and her lover. Through his character-driven writing, King challenges the concept of rehabilitation and questions the practicality of becoming a fully functioning and useful member of society after incarceration in correctional facilities such as Shawshank State Prison. Although the 1995 Film adaptation of King’s novella, more simply titled The Shawshank Redemption, stays faithful to King’s original work and makes sure to raise the same real-world issues, the film’s director and writer, Frank Darabont, does make minor changes to the plot and character development in order to emphasize King’s criticisms through the medium of film. In particular, Darabont changes the cause of Brooksie’s death and puts more emphasis on him in the film, rather than being represented as only a minor character in the novella. These changes add to the dramatic characterization, allowing the audience to better understand King’s argument that our current prison system is inefficient in rehabilitating its inmates in order to integrate them back into society.
Brooks Hatlen, an old con who has been at Shawshank State Prison since as long as anyone can remember, has a much more significant role in the movie than in the work of Stephen King. The novella only dedicates two paragraphs to old Brooksie, the prison librarian. In contrast, Darabont incorporated Brooksie into the very beginning of the movie, and he is included in various scenes throughout. On Andy’s first day in prison for example, Andy sits next to Brooksie in the dining hall where we are first introduced to him. He comes across as a harmless and fragile old man whom Andy will have no trouble getting along with. Andy ends up working with Brooksie in the prison library, which further develops the personal relationship that Andy has with him. Making Brooksie into a more significant character helps to evoke the audience’s sympathy for the poor old man who has never known any other life than a life inside the prison’s walls.
While Darabont incorporates Brooksie into the film more than he was featured in the novella, he also leaves out details of Brooksie’s past. King tells us that Brooksie “had killed his wife and daughter after a losing streak at poker” (King 35). The fact that he killed both his wife and daughter makes him come across as a crazy and obsessed man who chose his addiction over his family. By omitting this fact, we can actually grow fond of Brooksie and can feel more sympathy for the prison librarian. When asked about the more character driven approach, Frank Darabont said he was very impressed with King’s writing and wanted to emphasize the human interest aspect of the novella. “Steve has always been a character driven writer. There’s a reason why he’s one of the best-loved writers of all time, and it’s not because of the fangs. It’s because he’s a real writer of characters that become very vivid to the reader. When you jettison that stuff all you’ve got is plot, and plot accounts for a lot but it’s not everything,” (Darabont). By developing his character in the film into a more likeable inmate, Darabont gains the desired effect on the audience of making us sympathetic to the “hardened criminals” inside the correctional institutions.
Darabont also changes the plot of the novella so that Brooksie’s story is more dramatic. In one of the most powerful scenes of the movie, Brooksie is released from prison on parole and attempts to live out the rest of his life as a useful member of society. He is given a job as a bagger at a grocery store and is put into a halfway house from where he is supposed to be reintegrated into society. However, times have changed so much since his incarceration that he feels helpless and scared in an unfamiliar world. After considering many ways to break his parole with the intention of going back to jail, Brooksie hangs himself at the halfway house. This is a very foreboding scene because we can relate Brooksie’s release back into society to the two main characters, Andy and Red, and we hope that the same fate is not in store for them. The scene shows us the possible bad outcome of leaving prison after being locked up, and introduces a problem with the prison system. Prisons are supposed to reintegrate the criminals back into society, not make them so unfamiliar with the outside world that they with turn to more crime or suicide as a solution.
The daunting scene with Brooksie making the active decision to take his own life is more dramatic than King left it in the novella. In King’s story, Brooksie quietly slips away into nothing where he ends up dying in an old folk’s home just six months after his release from prison. King uses Brooks as a means of criticizing the flaws of the prison system. He says, “as usual, the state in all its wisdom had let him go long after any chance he might have had to become a useful part of society was gone” (King 35). The phrasing of this sentence is enough to realize King is criticizing the system. Through his sarcasm, and the use of the phrase “as usual,” it is clear this is not a rare case. It is, however a sad reality. Darabont changed the manner of Brooksie’s death, but by doing so was still able to emphasize the flaws of the prison system King points out in his novella.
King’s influence not only has an effect on the audience, but even infiltrated into the actor’s own ideology. For example, in an interview with Morgan Freeman, after being asked why we should ever let anyone out of prison after we have kept them there, Freeman replied that “the way we have prisons now we shouldn’t because what are they equipped to do, but go back” (Freeman). Additionally, the movie’s other leading man, Tim Robbins, stated that he “learned a lot from talking to prisoners,” but “learned more from talking to guards and people who work in the prisons [and] know what’s wrong with…the prison system and will tell you honestly. All you can learn is how to be a better criminal” (Robbins). One can only hope that King’s influence will not only impact his readers and the film’s audience, but also the prison system.
Works Cited
Darabont, Frank. “A Return To Shawshank Prison: An Interview With Writer/Director Frank Darabont.” Interview by Patrick Naugle. DVD Verdict. N.p., 29 Sept. 2004. Web. 20 Apr. 2013. <http://www.dvdverdict.com/interviews/darabontshawshank.php>.
Freeman, Morgan. “Morgan Freeman: The Shawshank Redemption.” Interview by Jimmy Carter. Youtube.com. N.p., 10 June 2008. Web. 20 Apr. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=Iirfu7IoeFk&NR=1>.
King, Stephen. “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.” Different Seasons. New York: Viking, 1982. Print.
Robbins, Tim. “Tim Robbins for The Shawshank Redemption.” Interview by Jim Ferguson.CriticsChoiceMovies.com. 05 Oct. 2010. Web. 14 Apr. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObJHIly7nlQ>.
The Shawshank Redemption. Dir. Frank Darabont. By Frank Darabont. Perf. Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, and J. Whitmore. Columbia Pictures, 1994. DVD.
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION 